When Mr. Burwell is on, his work is stunning. When I first saw Fargo I was most moved by two things: the overwhelming and profound use of white, and Mr. Burwell's haunting score. In Raising Arizona, the musical themes play with a huge range of instruments and sounds, bringing together banjos, yodellers and Beethoven.

Unfortunately, Mr. Burwell's CDs are usually poorly considered by the studios that release them. His scores are lumped together, usually two films to a CD. Themes can be fractured and/or spread illogically across tracks. Frequently his work is completely overlooked and never released to stand on its own merit.